


How Watson and Holmes appreciate male beauty

by Sherloki1854



Series: Johnlock in the original canon [14]
Category: Sherlock (TV), Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Analysis, M/M, Meta, Subtext
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-09-01
Updated: 2015-09-01
Packaged: 2018-04-18 13:11:16
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,821
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4707170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sherloki1854/pseuds/Sherloki1854
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sorry for the awful title.<br/>This is long and I know it – but it is the only way to show just how obvious it is that ACD canon Watson is attracted to both men and women, while Holmes is a lot “easier” to deal with.</p>
            </blockquote>





	How Watson and Holmes appreciate male beauty

When you learn English as a foreign language, the first thing you are taught regarding the use of “handsome” and “beautiful” is that the first applies only to men and the second only to women, “handsome” implying strength and a certain amount of ruggedness, “beautiful” needing regularity and…well, beauty. 

Of course, in reality the distinction is not so clear.

In the ACD canon, the word “handsome” is used 52 times; in eighteen of these instances, the word used, by Holmes or Watson, applies to men, eight times to women (sometimes, a woman is called “handsome” more than once), and the rest of the time to things. “Beautiful” and “beauty” appear 132 times, but more often than not as exclamations and as descriptions of things, not people. However, women are called “beautiful” about twenty times (by Holmes or Watson, although in the vast majority of cases by Watson as the narrator), and the word applies to men thrice, not counting Holmes using “beauty” as an ironical term for criminals (just why he does that is another question). “Attractive” is used three times; once about a man and twice about women, although in the second case, it is negated. Some other words are employed to describe good looks as well: “attractive” seldom, “dainty” once and once “natural advantages” are emphasised (great quote, that one).

NB: In the following list I will only count the instances where these words are utilised by Watson or Holmes, not by other people, and as I will say again below, only where it is relevant. I left about a dozen women who are characterised as “beautiful” by Watson out, I am not trying to prove the point that he was never attracted to women, so please do not read this as me reading evidence only selectively.

So...on to the ridiculously long list of evidence.

 

 

 

 

**WOMEN**

“ **Handsome”** is used a few times for women, but not as nearly as often as for men. The two main instances are below.

Charles Augustus Milverton – Watson describes the strong female character as “handsome”. Also, his description of her ( _It was a dark, handsome, clear-cut face which confronted Milverton--a face with a curved nose, strong, dark eyebrows shading hard, glittering eyes, and a straight, thin-lipped mouth_ ) sounds like Holmes (apart from the “dark”). 

The Devil’s Foot – Watson about Brenda Tregrennis:  _Her dark, clear-cut face was handsome_ [...] This also sounds like the above description (CAM). Still mirroring Holmes? She was in love with a man she could not marry, like Holmes himself, after all…

 

“ **Beautiful”**

Only “relevant” instances will be listed here: women they have not seen and are only repeating second-hand information about, women whose beauty they criticise (literally looking for the fly in the ointment), and men. Of course, Watson applied the word “beautiful” to about a dozen women, but as I am attempting to prove the point that he was attracted to men _as well_ , only the above named instances are relevant to the argument. Holmes is not a particular fan of calling women “beautiful” from his own observations (I think all instances are below), by the way: the few times he does that, he mostly repeats second-hand information.

**The Sign of Four – Watson: _Her face had neither regularity of feature nor beauty of complexion._ If you are interested, he is talking about his future wife (whom I still think he invented for his editor's sake) here and this is the first thing he says about her.**

The Hound of the Baskervilles – Watson: _I remembered that I had heard someone describe her as being a beauty. The woman who approached me was certainly that, and of a most uncommon type._ He constantly describes Beryl Stapleton as “beautiful”, by the way: she must have been very striking.

Lady Frances Carfax – Holmes describes her as  _a beautiful woman._ But he has not met her yet. 

The Lion’s Mane – Holmes about Maud Bellamy:  _She listened to a short account from my companion, with a composed concentration which showed me that she possessed strong character as well as great beauty._ He appreciates her because of her character; beauty comes later. 

The Veiled Lodger – Watson about Eugenia Ronder:  _Long years of inaction had coarsened the lines of her figure, but at some period it must have been beautiful._ Here, criticism comes first too. 

 

“ **Attractive”**

**The Lion’s Mane**

**Holmes: _Women have seldom been an attraction to me_**

**_That_ is about a summary of Holmes's part of this analysis. **

 

 

 

**BOTH**

**A Scandal in Bohemia**

**Holmes about Irene Adler: _Oh, she has turned all the men’s heads down in that part. She is the daintiest thing under a bonnet on this planet. So say the Serpentine-mews, to a man._**

**This is important: he has never seen her: he is only quoting somebody else. So please do not come with “the woman” here... Especially as her fiancee is described very flatteringly by Holmes after he has seen him – and twice:**

**Holmes about Godfrey Norton: _He is dark, handsome, and dashing_**

**Holmes about Godfrey Norton: _He was a remarkably handsome man, dark, aquiline, and moustached_**

**Two important conclusions can be drawn: Holmes appreciates Mr Norton's beauty, but not Irene Adler’s. And Holmes likes moustaches.**

 

Examples of where both the man and the woman are called “beautiful” in the same story (and which are meant to prove the point that not only women were an attraction to Watson especially):

 

The Second Stain

Watson about Lady Hilda Trelawney Hope:  _Terror--not beauty--was what sprang first to the eye_

Watson about Trelawney Hope:  _The other, dark, clear-cut, and elegant, hardly yet of middle age, and endowed with every beauty of body and of mind_

They both are pretty desperate. Yet Watson appreciates his beauty and her distress. Huh. 

 

The Crooked Man

Holmes about Mrs Barclay:  _I may add that she was a woman of great beauty, and that even now, when she has been married for upwards of thirty years, she is still of a striking and queenly appearance._

Watson about a Henry Wood's face: _[it] must at some time have been remarkable for its beauty_

So, while Holmes says something about a beauty he has never seen after speaking with a number of people who had known her for a long time and then adds that today she is still “striking” (a compliment much more fitting in with his character), Watson still sees another man's beauty although nobody has told him anything about Wood's former looks.

 

**The Creeping Man**

**Watson about a man: _tall, handsome youth_**

**Watson about a woman: _a bright, handsome girl of a conventional English type_**

**They are both good-looking. And Watson says exactly the same thing about both of them. Who is he still fooling?**

 

“ **Attractive”**

Thor Bridge 

Holmes:  **_Senator Gibson is an attractive person_ **

Holmes:  **_which was the more unfortunate as a very attractive governess superintended the education of two young children_ **

However, the difference is that  **he has never seen the woman and is only quoting the senator while having met the senator in person.**

Holmes is not fooling anyone either...

 

 

 

**MEN**

“ **Beauty”**

**The Illustrious Client – Watson about Baron Gruner: _His European reputation for beauty was fully deserved_**

**The Dying Detective – Holmes about himself: _Three days of absolute fast does not improve one’s beauty, Watson._ Implication: Watson has told Holmes that he is beautiful and Holmes now remarks that he will be so again after he has eaten. **

 

“ **Handsome”**

A couple of examples of Watson's appreciation of masculine beauty, more interesting examples will follow below:

The Valley of Fear – Watson about Mr Barker:  _He sat forward, his hands clasped and his forearms on his knees, with an answering smile upon his bold, handsome face._

The Reigate Puzzle – Watson about Alec Cunningham:  _his handsome features_

The Greek Interpreter – Holmes asking a man for an identification:  _“He wasn’t a tall, handsome, dark young man?”_

The Norwood Builder – Watson about the unhappy John Hector McFarlane:  _I looked with interest upon this man, who was accused of being the perpetrator of a crime of violence. He was flaxen-haired and handsome_

The Dancing Men – Watson about Mr Abe Slaney:  _He was a tall, handsome, swarthy fellow_

The Abbey Grange – Watson about Lord Brackenstall:  _His dark, handsome, aquiline features_

The Second Stain – Watson about Trelawney Hope:  _His handsome face was distorted with a spasm of despair_ (He cannot shut up about Trelawney Hope, can he now?) 

His Last Bow – The narrator (Watson?) about Von Bork:  _his keen, handsome face was flushed_

The Bruce-Partington Plans – Watson about Colonel Valentine Walter:  _an instant later we were joined by a very tall, handsome, light-haired man of fifty_ [...] _there were the long light beard and the soft, handsome delicate features of Colonel Valentine Walter._

The Hound of the Baskervilles – Watson about Mr Barrymore: _He was a remarkable-looking man, tall, handsome, with a square black beard and pale, distinguished features_ [...]  _Already round this pale-faced, handsome, black-bearded man there was gathering an atmosphere of mystery and of gloom_ [...] The second description sounds ridiculously like a romantic tragic hero. 

**The Illustrious Client – Watson about Baron Gruner:** _**extraordinarily handsome, with a most fascinating manner, a gentle voice and that air of romance and mystery** _ **[...]** _**He was certainly a remarkably handsome man** _ **[...]** **Watson is a romantic who is attracted to the bad boy. Haha. And he cannot shut up about Gruner: see above. Must have been very attractive.**

**The Blanched Soldier – Holmes about Godfrey Emsworth: _One could see that he had indeed been a handsome man with clear-cut features sunburned by an African sun_ [...]  And this is really interesting because who else was “as brown as a nut” when Holmes first met and moved in with him? **

 

 

 

It appears that Watson is attracted to both genders (I know, that is not news to anybody) and Holmes pretty much only to one.

 

 

 

And here is what everybody always wanted to know, whether consciously or not:

“Natural advantages"

The Retired Colourman - **Holmes about Watson:** _ **With your natural advantages, Watson, every lady is your helper and accomplice**_

Here we go: Holmes compliments Watson on his looks.

 

**And now Watson about Holmes:**

The Read-Headed League –  **Watson about Holmes:** _**All the afternoon he sat in the stalls wrapped in the most perfect happiness, gently waving his long, thin fingers in time to the music, while his gently smiling face and his languid, dreamy eyes were as unlike those of Holmes the sleuth-hound** _ **[...]**

Also: Watson once admires aquiline features. Guess who else has them?

The Man With The Twisted Lip – **Watson about Holmes:** _ **In the dim light of the lamp I saw him sitting there, an old briar pipe between his lips, his eyes fixed vacantly upon the corner of the ceiling, the blue smoke curling up from him, silent, motionless, with the light shining upon his strong-set aquiline features.**_

These quotes does not need explaining.

 

Anybody still wants to tell me that they were never attracted to each other in the books? ****

 


End file.
